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[SheaLane]

Hi! I'm pretty new here. This is my first thread.

"The Homunculus" is a project I've been working on for a little while. I've never made a game on my own before, so, hopefully, it goes well. I'm primarily an artist and I'm learning a lot of the technical stuff as I go. Programming does not come naturally to me, but I'm making the game in Unity and, so far, Unity has seemed pretty easy to learn.

The game is going to be vary simple.I have a fair amount of the art done, but still have to do pretty much everything else, a lot of which I've never done before.

Premiss

The game's premiss is a little strange. It takes place inside a crazy guy's psyche. You are the crazy guy (straight jacket and all). You are so crazy you cannot function in the real world. You don't understand it and it doesn't understand you. You do not belong here and the only thing that will bring you peace is to severe your connection to this confused land....... but The Homunculus has no intention of letting this happen.

The Homunculus

Homunculus is Latin for "Little Man". There are several myths involving homunculi and it is currently used as visual tool in neuroscience and psychology. My version is somewhere in the middle.

From Wikipedia:

"The homunculus is commonly used today in scientific disciplines such as psychology as a teaching or memory tool to describe the distorted scale model of a human drawn or sculpted to reflect the relative space human body parts occupy on the somatosensory cortex (the "sensory homunculus") and the motor cortex (the "motor homunculus")"

My homunculus is a "sensory homunculus". So, essentially, he's structured in a way that the size of his body parts are proportioned relative to the amount of space the somatosensory cortex devotes to that body part. This means, he has huge hands and a giant tongue(among other things) since a large portion of somatosensory cortex is devoted to these areas.



Our senses are our link with the real world. The Homunculus is the personification of our insane protagonist's senses. Our hero  doesn't want to be chained to reality any longer. He wants to be free. In order to do so he must evade the grip of The Homunculus' huge hands.

Gameplay

Like I said, the game will be very simple. There will be one large circular room with labyrinth like paths. In the middle there is a spiral staircase with a door at the top. You win your by getting up the stairs and through the door. As well as a fairly simple maze to manoeuvre, there will be obstacles and, of course, The Homunculus hunting you down.

I would love to hear some feedback, let me know what you think!

[InfiniteStateMachine]

Game screenshots?

[ProgramGamer]

Tremendous job you did with all the research and connections to psychology. I'm a bit concerned if your game is going to be able to hold water though, since you seem to only be making a maze symbolizing the madness of a man, which, frankly, has been done numerous times in games before...

I do look forward to seeing what you have to offer however. This does seem like an interesting project!

[SheaLane]

Game screenshots?

Here you go!.....needs work though. It's too dark.

[SheaLane]

Tremendous job you did with all the research and connections to psychology. I'm a bit concerned if your game is going to be able to hold water though, since you seem to only be making a maze symbolizing the madness of a man, which, frankly, has been done numerous times in games before...

I do look forward to seeing what you have to offer however. This does seem like an interesting project!

Thanks, I can see what you mean. The maze thing is kind of cliche. I never really meant to put a lot of emphasis on that aspect of the game. In my initial idea, there was no maze, but it was too simple. It's supposed to be more about luring The Homunculus away from the door and losing him, so you can get back to the middle and up the door. The maze is actually quite small.

When I learned what a homunculus was, I instantly wanted to make my own version of one for a game. Hopefully, it doesn't come across as a recycled idea. I find my favorite ideas have almost always already been done.

Thanks for the feedback!

[SheaLane]

I've been working on lighting. I have a lot to learn with lighting and I'm trying learn the technical side of it thoroughly, not just enough to light this scene, so it's a little going a little slow.

Anyway, the lighting on the previous screen shots were not good, way too dark. Here's a new screen shot:



(that's The Homunculus in the middle)

[Yxven]

It looks great.

[vividhelix]

As a fellow dev with a brain-themed game in the works, I approve of this project

Have you played Mind - Path to Thalamus?

[SheaLane]

It looks great.

Thanks!

As a fellow dev with a brain-themed game in the works, I approve of this project

Glad you like it. Your game is really cool! I love the single player co-op approach to puzzles. I wanted to add a puzzle aspect to "The Homunculus", but I what my brain pooped out wasn't very good. Still might add something small like that. I really like the art style too. Looks great!

Have you played Mind - Path to Thalamus?

No, I just looked it up. Looks stunning!

Here's some game art. A high poly version of one of the sculptures in the level.

[A Strange Bird]

That sculpture is terrifying! I adore it :D also wow this sounds amazing, I can't wait to see more art 

[vividhelix]

That is the right kind of creepy. Looks even better with the bottom to up lighting in the previous screenshot.

[SheaLane]

That sculpture is terrifying! I adore it :D also wow this sounds amazing, I can't wait to see more art

That is the right kind of creepy. Looks even better with the bottom to up lighting in the previous screenshot.

Thank you!!!!

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to work on "The Homunculus". My computer machine broke. I'm using a backup computer, but it can't handle most 3D applications. I'm trying to rectify this issue as quick as possible, but don't have a real time frame. So, sadly, "The Homunculus" is on hiatus.

The Homunculus is not dead!!! He's just got a bad hangover and will be back.

In the mean time here's some more art work.





An unfinished version of our crazy hero. Still needs a lot of work. I need to tone down the detail on the fabric, among other things. Any feedback or crits would be much appreciated!!